That’s how I know him, from the bar. They come for drinks after work, settling on high stools or low sofas like a flock of starlings, and sometimes they stay half the night like they’ve got nothing to go home for. That’s their lives really: work, drink, perch on the wire, back to work again. It’s perfectly respectable, our place, not lap-dancing or anything. I was a proper waitress, all rigged out in black. Customers could slip a tip into my apron pocket but if they tried to slip their hands anywhere else, know what I mean, they’d be for it.
Well Vicki, says Jonathan. What’s this all about?
I’m impressed he’s remembered my name till I see him looking at my badge. Should of thrown it back in the Rottweiler’s face along with everything else. I been sacked, I tell him.
Oh, I’m sorry.
I’ve noticed this about him before, how polite he is. Some of them got no manners. They grab at your skirt and call you a dozy sow and pretend they’re going to vomit over your shoes when they’ve had a skinful. That’s why I always wear trainers. But Jonathan always says please and thank-you and would you mind. Never seems to get those dark patches of sweat under his armpits when he takes his jacket off. Keeps his fingernails clean.
While I’m wiping my eyes he sits himself on the wall beside me.
Can they do that?
We’re only casual labour. They can do what they bloody want.
Surely there’s a reason?
I got in a bit late.
People are staring at us curiously as they pass by, as if they think he’s the one making me cry. The Rottweiler yelled at me about my bad time-keeping like it was a crime against nature – though she’s always making us stay on and clear up for no extra.
Is that all?
Well it sounds feeble, don’t it? Needs a push. I can’t help it, I explain. It’s cos I’ve been feeling sick. Cos I’m pregnant. That’s the real reason they don’t want me.
He frowns. I didn’t think they could do that. Then he stands up and brushes off his legs carefully. He’s looking down on me again. His eyes are a bit close together, but he has a nice firm jaw, very smooth. He’s probably rich enough to pay a barber every morning to give him that clean-cut look. Fancy aftershave of course. Not like the cats’ piss that some lads wear. Everything about him is expensive. I’m not used to a man like this taking my side. I don’t want him to go.
Fresh tears come easy. I don’t know what I’m going to do, I wail. Me mam threw me out when she heard about the baby. I’m s’pose to be moving into me own place but now I int got enough for the deposit. Will he fall for it? Will he offer to fork out the difference? A hundred quid’s nothing to him and he was quite a fair tipper when I’d bring the drinks over. Not exactly generous, mind – probably never got drunk enough – but fair. Sometimes I even seen him digging in his pocket for change for the Big Issue.
So you’re telling me you’ve no home, no job and you’re pregnant?
Yes.
How old are you, Vicki?
Nineteen.
It’s six o’clock on a summer evening and everyone else has somewhere to go. I wonder is he sizing me up? How’s he going to walk off now? Make him look like a right callous bastard won’t it, if all he leaves me with is one crumpled snotty hanky.
He pats his black leather executive briefcase. Do you like Dover sole?
Now I don’t reckon I ever had Dover sole, not unless you can get it in batter down the chippy and I’m wondering what kind of man carries a wet fish around in his briefcase. Almost sends me running but, like I said, I never been this close to money before.
’S allright.
Why don’t you come and have supper with me? Maybe I can help you work something out – even talk to your mother for you.
No, no, please don’t. She’s got this awful violent boyfriend. What else could I say? That’s the trouble with embellishment, one little piece of decoration, like a nice ferny frond or a scattering of flower petals, leads to another. Suddenly you’ve planted a whole fucking garden and it’s grown into a jungle with no way out.
Jonathan’s house is kind of like Jonathan, tall and narrow and sober. The roof slopes the way his shoulders do, stone lintels overhang the windows like his eyebrows. The kitchen is all smooth stainless steel, with nothing out of place – not even a knife or a pepper-pot. Running down the middle of it is this long marble table, bit like a mortuary slab, and he slaps the dead sole down on it. Then he goes over to an enormous fridge and gets out two beers and it’s so like one of those adverts off the telly I’m thinking I’ve walked into a dream.
I take the beer into his living room, which isn’t my idea of cosy. The floor is polished wood but it clatters when I walk on it, and when I sit on the black leather sofa it squeaks like a kitten you’re stroking the wrong way. All these protesting noises AND it feels lonely. It feels as if someone has taken away all the comfy old chairs and the potted plants and the family photos and just left hard black surfaces. He’s not really living here, only camping. The books look like they’ve been bought to fill a space and most of the CDs I int even heard of. The only ornaments are a dish of grey pebbles and a weird face mask with all sorts of patterns carved into it, like voodoo or black magic. For one scary moment I think Christ, he’s not grinding his knife blade to fillet the fish. He’s going to cut me open because he wants my blood or my non-existent foetus for some kind of ritual. I watch too many horror films, me. He’s an accountant for fucksake.
He comes to find me and sees me looking at the awful thing and spits sharp as a needle, Don’t touch that.
Seems it’s some ancient fertility icon, very valuable but brittle as matchsticks. When I ask what it’s doing in his lounge he just says, Let’s eat now.
Well he’s got no ketchup but the wine’s nice, cool and fruity like Jonathan’s voice. He’s trying to explain the sort of work he does. Men always think you should be interested in their work because it makes them feel important, but I’m only half-concentrating. When he talks about liquidation I imagine his white and silver kitchen as a giant iceberg melting all around us. And when he talks about receivership I think for a moment he’s just another con been handling stolen goods. When he says bankrupt, I finally get the picture. No money, that’s something I know about.
Let me get this straight. You’re sorting all these firms that have gone bust?
Yes.
So how d’you get paid?
He smiles and tries to explain, because it’s clear as water the money is rolling in. I get bored before he’s finished but I get the picture right enough. He’s just a high-class bailiff – but, shit, what does it matter if he can afford a TV screen as wide as this one.
Vicki, he says and shows all his teeth. You’re like a breath of fresh air.
I spin out the dinner as long as I can because I don’t know what’s going to happen next, whether I can face going back to his squeaky lounge with the creepy mask or whether I want him to jump me or whether I’d feel insulted if he didn’t. Of course in the bar you flirt a bit, specially if it’s going to up your tips, but you don’t mean it. Now he’s looking nervous too. He’s not done this before, not with someone like me. Does he think I play by different rules?
I think I ought to go, I say.
Where?
I can go to me mate, Shell’s. She’ll let me kip on her floor.
He’s looking straight at me with his narrow eyes, but I can’t read the expression in them. I’ve two spare bedrooms here, he says. Might be more comfortable for you.
Pig in clover, that’s what I am. Can’t believe my luck. I always fancied a sugar daddy and here he is. My own room, nice big bed, clean white sheets, and no strings attached. Every morning I wake up, stretch, think I’ve died and gone to heaven. I can hear the cleaning woman downstairs polishing them wooden floors but she’s foreign, don’t speak much English, so I lie here and ignore her. Shell wouldn’t believe me at first, said I was having her on. Whaddya mean, lodger? she snorted. You paying rent? You’re his blood
y tart.
I don’t bother to argue. I know I’m lucky. You don’t often get to see into people’s lives like this. I mean, I could of served him drinks every day for ten years – instead of just six months – and still not know nothing except the cut of his suit. Now I know he lives alone in a swanky town house and plays classical music while he potters about cooking gourmet meals. I nod my head and listen carefully when he goes on about stuff at work and I always make the coffee and wash the pans. He likes to hear me singing even though he don’t know the songs and I reckon he appreciates having a bit of life in his frigid old house.
We’re not like a couple or anything. We don’t go out together. Some evenings he goes off on these corporate dos – or maybe even to see a film – what would I know? He won’t take me back to the bar neither, though I’d give anything to see the Rottweiler’s face when I walk in on his arm. Says it’s cos I shouldn’t be drinking. Says someone has to keep an eye on me and look after the welfare of the baby. Since that first meal he won’t offer me no more wine and no way will he let me smoke. Like he’s my dad or something. He says I shouldn’t stay out so late with Shell, but I don’t reckon it’s any of his business.
When I get back from a club night I always take my shoes off on the doorstep so’s I don’t disturb him, but one time he’s waiting up for me. Usually the house is dead quiet so at first I think I’m hearing a burglar prowl around on the creaky floorboards. Then I realise it’s Jonathan standing in the hallway. The air’s hot as hell’s kitchen and he’s only wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms but his arms are folded tight across his chest and he’s frowning.
He almost shouts at me, Where have you been?
I shrug. I been with Shell. Dancing.
Do you realise what time it is?
What?
I want you in by midnight in future.
What! Who the fuck does he think he is?
This is my house, Vicki. I make the rules. If you don’t like them you can go.
I can feel the anger boiling up inside when he says, You should listen to me you know. Someone has to protect your health and the future of your baby.
I lose my rag easy. I lunge at him but he grabs my wrist. And then it happens so quickly we neither of us have time to stop it. Fact is, I’m giddy with the drink and he’s not had a sniff of nothing for months. One minute he’s pinning my hands behind my back and the next I’m flat on his leather sofa with my vest pushed up to my neck and my thong snapped round my ankles. I wouldn’t call it rape though. In about five seconds he’s lying limp, a dead weight on top of me.
Christ, Vicki, he says. I’m sorry.
It’s okay.
I really didn’t intend…
I said it’s okay.
I push him away and take the rest of my clothes off properly. The room’s in darkness but there’s enough street light coming through his venetian blinds to make stripes on my skin. I lift the voodoo mask off its hook and hold it in front of my face. Then I pace up and down and growl like I’m a tiger and I’m going to pounce on him. And this time he don’t tell me I shouldn’t be touching it. He’s staring at me like he’s trapped in a hole. Makes me feel powerful when his eyes roll and his cock rises. I know I’m fit, I’m not one of them has everything fake. Anyway, it had to happen, right? You don’t get a feller and a girl together in the same house without them ending up shagging. Let him think he was a gentleman for waiting, and I can think I’m no whore for the same reason.
I’m pleased really that we done it, makes me feel I’ve more of a right to be living here. (Though we still keep to our own rooms. I don’t care to lie next to someone else sweating all night long.) He’s not a great fuck, I have to say. He’s a bit flabby. Really I prefer a man to be dead hard all over, like my ex was – but he used to work out and, to be honest, he’d rough me up sometimes too. Jonathan don’t even scratch with his toenails or scrape my face with his stubble. He’s soft as a baby and it’s funny to think people are queuing up in front of him all day long, in tears probably, begging him not to take their family heirlooms or to leave them a piece of machinery so they can start a new factory going again. Would they dry their eyes, would it give them a laugh if I was to tell them, whisper in their ears, that he was a bit of a wimp in bed?
Vick, says Shell when I show her the little stick I just weed over. You are such a stupid dork.
See, Jonathan’s been a bit casual with the condoms. Like he’d try to remember to use them in case I’d got Aids or something, but you could see he felt really awkward. Like, if I’m clean enough to live in his perfect house and clean enough for him to stick his tongue down my throat then I should be clean enough for his precious unsheathed dick. And of course contraception isn’t an issue. For him. Which is why I’m now up shit creek and Shell’s telling me it’s way too late to take the morning-after pill.
So d’you think I oughta tell him?
The flame flares up so high from her lighter I think it’s going to singe her eyelashes.
No way! Just get rid of it and say you lost it. That’s what you was going to do all along, right?
Somehow it’s different now, though. Now that there actually is something growing inside me. Now that the smell of alcohol makes me retch and the first fag of the day tastes like cinders. And I start to think, whey hey, it wouldn’t be so bad for a kid to have a dad like Jonathan. Imagine how things might of turned out if my dad had been an accountant instead of a disappearing-into-the-distance lorry driver. I could get my kid such a cool buggy he’d think he was riding in a frigging chariot. And he’d have his own nursery all done out for him, posh.
Then I get doubts. Like s’pose I lose my figure? And how am I going to explain? What if he don’t believe me? We’ll have to take them DNA tests and everything. And what do I know about him anyway? Why hasn’t he had kids before? He’s over forty for Godsake. Maybe he has one of them gruesome diseases that get passed on. Or worse. Don’t dare tell Shell this, but I found two women’s dresses hanging up behind his fitted sliding doors. Stashed away beneath a load of suits like a guilty secret. He don’t know I spotted them. How do I know he int a sodding transvestite, jerking off into a pair of satin knickers? Is that the kind of person I want to be the father of my kid?
I’m so mixed up I don’t know what to think. Fact is, I quite like him. I wouldn’t ever of said that I fancied him – he’s too old for one thing – but it isn’t just the money makes him smell nice. He’s grateful to me. He don’t just roll over and snore after a shag. He gasps a bit, but even when he’s short of breath he’ll say thank-you. Now I’m not pretending I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but I reckon we can work something out. And anyway, as Shell says, there’s a few weeks to go yet. Loads of pregnancies don’t amount to nothing. I could be bleeding again soon enough. Something always turns up – usually when you least expect it.
Most definitely I am not expecting HER. I been out to do a bit of shopping – well, pricing really. And I been looking at some travel brochures, hoping maybe I could persuade him to take me on a nice trip. To the sea, I think, before I’m too fat to look good in a bikini. Ibiza’s wicked, Shell says, or Majorca. But to be honest, Jonathan isn’t the party type. It’s a shame he’s not into dancing cos there’s nothing like spinning around a dance floor to make you forget your troubles. So, anyway, I got my arms full of these brochures, colours so wild they do your head in, and I skip along to the kitchen, and she’s hovering there like a ghost. Actually she’s more like Morticia from the Addams Family, tall and beaky and dressed in black. She has heavy black hair too and a thin face and a cruel mouth and she’s looking at me as if I’m a half-dead bird the cat’s brought in.
Good afternoon, she says like ice cracking.
I let them spill at my feet, all those pictures of sunny skies and jazzy umbrellas and tanned bodies glistening with oil. Who the hell are you?
I’m Francine. You must be Vicki.
Francine who?
Jonathan’s wife.
> I didn’t even know he had a fucking wife. Never mentioned her. Never got a call from her. I never even seen a photo – though he don’t have pictures of people on his walls, only buildings. Or dead things like rocks and stones. What kind of marriage is it if there’s no trace of her in the house except maybe them two dresses I was wondering about? And I know for a fact he hadn’t had sex for months, he was gagging for it.
Frankie and Johnnie, I snort. I can’t help it, makes me laugh.
She raises an eyebrow. She’s plucked them both so fine they’re like two metal hoops and her eyes are the balls you want to sock right through them.
You divorced then?
We’ve been having a trial separation. My plane was early for once.
She pulls out a chair and sits down, crossing her legs so that her foot bounces gently above the floor. I never seen shoes with such pointy toes. I wonder how she can hardly walk in them, but she’s the type probably travels everywhere by taxi.
I suppose, she drawls very slowly in her funny accent. I suppose it’s fairly obvious what he sees in you.
It’s obvious all right. Her skin is dry and papery, her make-up is cracking round her nose and mouth. If she was any thinner you’d try to hang your coat on her.
I’m not going to hang around waiting for a showdown. He’s sure got some explaining to do but she can have first listen. So I leave her there, in what used to be her kitchen, where I bet she never lifted a finger while he faffed about grinding his spices and chopping his herbs. I go to my own room and slam my fists into the pillow, wishing it could be her smug face. I’m more than mad, I’m spitting feathers cos of the way he lied. Why couldn’t he of said he was separated? And how did she know about me? He must of told her, he must of been sending her emails all along. What does that make me? Some stupid stunt he’s trying to pull?
Naked City Page 13